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July 18, 2012

G92: Red Sox 10, White Sox 1

Cody Ross (3-for-5) hit two three-run home runs - in consecutive innings - and Adrian Gonzalez (3-for-4) drove in Boston's remaining four runs. Jacoby Ellsbury also had three hits, and he and Ross each scored three times.

Ellsbury doubled to begin the first inning and Gonzalez singled him home.

In the third, Ellsbury and Carl Crawford each singled and Ross nailed a dong off the left field pole. With two outs in the fourth, and Pedro Ciriaco and Ellsbury aboard, Ross hit another tater, to left-center. Gonzalez followed that with an opposite field shot of his own.

Evil Bert added a two-run single in the sixth, after Crawford was hit by a pitch and Ross doubled. ... Gonzalez has hit safely in 22 of his last 23 games; the one exception was July 8, when he left the game after one AB with flu-like symptoms.

If we're going to be mad over the Youkilis situation, maybe we should focus our anger at management for getting rid of him like he was a hot potato before he had a chance to get healthy. And in exchange for a sack of White Castle burgers to boot. (Not to mention the fact that they basically traded him to a team where he could have a direct hand in keeping the Red Sox from the playoffs. Someone really dropped the ball here.)

I posted a rebuttal to someone on the Globe site who was saying how Youkilis was "clearly" playing badly on purpose for the Red Sox and how he was trying to force them to trade them. I almost feel compelled to paste here my rebuttal to those ideas.

It's probably not appropriate though, because no one here is going that far. Still, if one doesn't subscribe to those (sadly common) ideas, being mad at Youkilis for what basically amounts to him finally getting healthy enough to play at his career norms seems a little irrational.

MH and Jere would you rather have a healthy unhappy Yook for the rest of the season or a young Will Middlebrooks play and see what he would do. I dont think Yook was going to sit the bench, so in respect to him they traded him to a contender. That may look as though they dropped the ball, but they stood by the manager.

I love the fact that Booby V isnt afraid to bat lefties back to back, Tito hated to do that.

I don't have a problem with them trading Youkilis. I had assumed most people knew it was likely to happen at the deadline, since the Sox were going to let him walk after this year anyway. So he has a nice first few weeks for CWS? I don't like him beating up on us, but good for him!

I don't mind the idea of trading him in general principle. I do bristle at some of the reactions where people get mad at Youk for it. In my opinion that's misdirected anger.

No one here has gone as far as some of the ridiculous fan reactions that claim that Youk was playing poorly on purpose for the Sox. But I still kind of now associate anger at Youk with such mindsets. (It's right up there with people that now believe Lester purposely threw a meatball to Youk the other night wanting him to hit a homerun because ... I don't know. To "get back" at Valentine for not being Francona. I don't know.)

But if Youk is gonna get traded, we have to be smart about it. We have to realize there's a very good possibility (actually, probability) that he's going to improve once healthy. So it's kind of silly to act affronted when that inevitability happens.

Making it worse has been the front office trading him for almost literally nothing, and to a wild card rival to boot. I think the fans that somehow blame Youk for all this are subconsciously mad about that aspect as well. (Almost like he chose to go to the White Sox in the way that Damon chose the Yankees.) If the Red Sox had traded Youk to a National League team and he did well there, I can very easily imagine that the people that are mad at Youk now would be going, "Good for him."

"I just think that sometimes in that environment in Boston, sometimes the media can get on you and expect you to have a career year every year. ... The minute you get to your locker and you come to the field and the door's open til the minute you leave and all around. It's just a media-driven baseball town. Here [in Chicago], it's just kind of happy-go-lucky. If you're the player of the game, they come to your locker. If you're not, so be it, you just get on with your life and go home. There's just no added stress here, in that regard. Sometimes it can just wear on those teams in the Northeast."